Writing Backwards
by SkyGem
Summary: Tsuna was four years old the first time he met the boy who lived in the mirrors. Short multi-chap. No pairings.
1. I See You

Summary: Tsuna was four years old when he first met the boy who lived in the mirrors.

SkyGem: Hey all! So, this fic, for once, actually wasn't prompted by my lovely Em, although she did help be get my creative juices flowing, so huge props to her! Love her lots! And as for this fic, it was actually inspired quite a bit by a Sherlock fanfic that I seem to have lost track of. If any of y'all have read it, please let me know where I can find it again, yeah? It's beautiful. Anyways, that's all for now! Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Tsuna was four the first time they saw each other.

Sitting on the counter in the bathroom, the boy had been painstakingly cleaning out a scrape on one of his arms when he looked up into the mirror, and almost shrieked when he saw two people in the mirror instead of just one.

One of them was just his reflection, looking back with wide, horrified eyes, jaw hanging open.

But the other was a little boy about the same age as him, staring with confused green eyes and murmuring soundlessly to himself, as if he were trying to come up with an explanation.

He was dressed in a very nice but uncomfortable-looking black suit, and had silvery hair, like liquid moonlight spilling to his shoulders.

When he noticed Tsuna staring, he lifted an enquiring eyebrow, sending meaningful looks at the cuts and scrapes all over his arms and face.

Tsuna just shrugged, murmuring a quite, "I fell."

The other boy looked confused, leaning forward and turning an ear towards the mirror.

"I fell!" repeated Tsuna in a louder voice, leaning forward so that the boy could hear.

And still, the other boy didn't seem to be able to hear him, because he just continued looking confused.

Suddenly, the boy's head turned to the side, as if he had heard somebody calling to him, and after a moment, he turned to look back at Tsuna, an apologetic smile on his face.

And with a wave goodbye, he disappeared out of the frame, and Tsuna was once again left alone with his reflection in the mirror.

* * *

After that incident, Tsuna kept a close eye on any and all mirrors he passed, hoping to see the boy again.

But as the days passed into months and then into years, and he still didn't see the boy, he slowly became convinced that he had made the whole thing up.

After all, how could there be a boy in a mirror?

Then one day, at age seven, Tsuna was passing the hallway mirror, when something in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

Turning to look, the brunet was surprised to find a rather familiar face staring back at him through narrowed eyes.

Tsuna's jaw dropped open, but not because he had finally gotten to see the boy who lived in the mirrors again, but rather because of the heavy bruising and cuts on the other boy's face. The suit he had been wearing last time had been exchanged for a ratty old t-shirt, and he seemed to be looking rather...gaunt.

"Are you okay?" asked Tsuna, worried, his hands fluttering uselessly in front of him, and the other boy smiled slightly, despite still seeming unable to hear him.

The boy seemed to look around himself for a second, as if searching, and even disappeared from the screen for a while before returning only a few seconds later with a marker in hand.

Putting the tip to the glass, the other boy quickly drew a crude version of the "restroom" symbol, and it didn't take Tsuna long to understand what the other boy meant.

He hesitated a moment, worrying that he would lose the boy in the mirror again.

But the boy had already left as well, after erasing what he'd drawn, and Tsuna followed suit, grabbing a marker from his desk as he hurried to the bathroom, to the mirror where he'd first seen the boy.

When Tsuna got there, he waited in excitement for his new friend to come back. There was so much he wanted to ask.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But the boy didn't show up again.

And Tsuna got a sinking feeling as he realized that he'd lost his mirror friend again.

* * *

After that second encounter, Tsuna despaired at the thought that he might have to wait another three years to see his friend again.

The brunet was already dying of curiosity and, now, concern as well.

He didn't think he could wait another three years.

As it turned out, he didn't have to.

The next time Tsuna saw the boy from the mirrors, it was just over a year after their second encounter, and the boy looked much more healthy than he had last time.

All the bruises and cuts were gone (well, of course they were. It had been a year!), and the disturbingly empty expression in the other boy's eyes was gone.

His gaunt face seemed to have gained a little bit more baby fat, making him look much more healthy, and Tsuna couldn't help but smile.

This time, the other boy was on Tsuna's television screen (which was off).

The boy smiled a beaming smile, and pulled out a marker he already seemed to have prepared.

In slightly awkwardly shaped characters, he wrote on the screen, "Japanese?"

Tsuna had to admit he was impressed. In order for him to see them properly, the other boy must have written the word backwards on his side of the screen/mirror/whatever he was looking at.

Tsuna, not wanting to start drawing on his television screen, nodded in answer.

The boy smiled again, before picking up a cloth and erasing his previous question.

"Italian," he wrote this time, pointing to himself. And then, after a few moments of deliberation, he added, "...mostly."

Tsuna's confusion must've shown, because the other boy erased what he had written, and wrote, "Mother, half-Japanese."

Tsuna's eyes widened in wonder, but before he could react in any other way, the boy turned his head to the side, as if someone were calling him, just like the first time they had met.

The boy turned to smile apologetically at Tsuna, who shooed the other kid off non-chalantly, to show that he didn't mind.

The other kid smiled brightly, and waved Tsuna goodbye.

Tsuna returned the wave.

The visits did seem to be getting closer together, and Tsuna hoped that this meant he might be seeing his tentative friend again soon.

He couldn't wait.

* * *

SkyGem: That's it for this chapter, folks! Did you enjoy it? Find it interesting? Please drop a review and let me know what you thought, yeah? I promise that this fic isn't going to become another of my long dormant other multi-chaps. This is more similar to "Time to Train" actually, in that it will be rather short, and will probably be finished in the next week or two. I haven't decided how many chapters yet though. Anyways, I'll update this tomorrow, so stay tuned, yeah? Ciao!

P.S. It's a big milestone for me today! 10 whole days I've updated in a row now! Next milestone is one month! Think I can do it?

P.P.S. I don't really like this title. Anyone got any ideas for what I could change it to?


	2. Names

SkyGem: Before we start this chapter, just wanted to give a huge thanks to the lovely 0Oo The River Witch oO0 and my bae Bleach-ed-Na-Tsu for coming up with such an awesome title! Go check out their works! They're both super talented authors! But before that, read this chapter first, yeah?

* * *

Two months after their third meeting, Tsuna saw his mirror friend again.

He was sitting in his class, looking dreamily out of the window, when suddenly, his friend walked in from one side of the window.

Their eyes met, and the other boy grinned widely, waving.

Tsuna grinned and gave a small wave, keeping the motion small so as not to attract any unwanted attention.

His friend looked confused for a second, but then he seemed to notice Tsuna's school uniform, and gave a little laugh.

Tugging at his own shirt, he showed Tsuna two thumbs up, to show his approval, and Tsuna just stuck his tongue out at him.

The other kid laughed again, but before Tsuna could do anything in response, he was startled by his teacher calling his name.

"Sawada!" she said, and he immediately whipped around to look at her, seeing her standing next to the blackboard, which had a math problem on it.

By the time Tsuna had stuttered his way through an excuse and was finally allowed to sit down, his friend was gone, but there was a note left on on the class of the window, on much neater writing than the first time around.

In thick black marker was the name, "Gokudera Hayato."

* * *

One week after the incident in class, Tsuna was out doing some shopping with his mother when he looked into a shop window he was walking past, to see Gokudera walking alongside him on the other side.

They both seemed to notice each other at about the same time, and Tsuna knew immediately that he wasn't the only one who was happy that their meetings seemed to be getting closer and closer together.

Today, his friend was wearing a warm, heavy grey hoodie that was currently being pelted by rain, and up until he had noticed Tsuna, he had looked absolutely miserable.

But then his eyes had widened, a smile growing on his face.

He waved cheerfully at Tsuna, who shifted the grocery bags in his arms so that he had one hand free, and reached into his pocket for a pad of sticky notes he had there.

Pulling the top sticky note out, he reached out and stuck it to the shop window.

Written out carefully on the back of the sticky note, spelled out in the English alphabet.

Gokudera stopped walking, moving closer to the window to try and make out what was written on the note.

Tsuna kept walking, not wanting to be left behind by his mother, but as he walked away, he noticed Gokudera's lips forming his name, and couldn't help but smile.

* * *

The frequency of their meetings increased drastically after that, and before long, both boys had gotten used to seeing each other in every semi-reflective surface, and had learned to take comfort in a familiar face always seen in the peripheries.

By age twelve, they had worked out a good system, which relied mostly on hand gestures and hastily written notes on colorful sticky notes, or on the glass itself with a black sharpie.

Sometimes, when neither had anything important to do, they would each find the nearest big mirror (for Tsuna it was usually the one in his bathroom, from the first time they'd met), and would just sit down and talk.

Tsuna eventually learned that, the second time they had seen each other, when Gokudera had been all beaten and bruised, the boy had just run away from home.

Tsuna had been horrified, naturally, to hear that his friend had gone through such a thing, but Gokudera had been quick to assure him that the day had seen each other for the second time had been his turning point. Gokudera had just met the doctor who had taken him in.

In return for all this private, personal information Gokudera had told him, Tsuna found himself opening up to the other boy as well.

He told Gokudera about how he was always bulied, about how clumsy and stupid he was, and how everyone called him Dame-Tsuna.

And Gokudera, thankfully, didn't say anything nasty about it, didn't start making fun of Tsuna as well.

Somewhere along the way, the two became the best of friends, which was why, when Gokudera took up smoking at the age of 13, Tsuna tried his utmost to get him to stop. He wrote long rants on the glass, he begged and pleaded, he even tried the silent treatment...or rather, the "ignoring" treatment, as their exchanges were always silent.

None of it seemed to work.

Tsuna's patience finally ran out one day when he had been sitting on his bed, doing his homework, and he looked up to see Hayato in his television screen again, getting up to leave for a smoke break.

Growling in frustration, Tsuna had said in a low, dangerous voice, "Gokudera Hayato, you drop those cigarettes right now or so help me kami..."

Gokudera immediately dropped the cigarette box and lighter, his back stiffening, and there was a long moment of silence as he slowly turned around.

Tsuna, who hadn't been expecting a reply, stared at his confusion.

Gokudera gaped at Tsuna through the screen, pointing and gesturing confusedly, and Tsuna's jaw dropped open as a thought entered his mind.

There was absolutely no way.

Gokudera gulped nervously, and met Tsuna's eyes.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi...can you hear me?"

* * *

SkyGem: That's it for now! Please let me know what you thought, yeah? This chapter was a fun one to write :D Anyways, I'm thinking two more chapters to go after this. The next one will be posted either tomorrow, or the day after, depending on what writing mood I'm in tomorrow. Anyways, that's it for tonight! Gotta head to sleep now. Stay tuned, and I'll see ou all tomorrow!


	3. I Hear You

Tsuna stared in wonder at his best friend - stared as his name fell out of those familiar lips, said in an unfamiliar voice. A voice that was so different from what he had expected it to be - a little gravely and unsure, but much deeper than one would expect.

"How..." Hayato stopped and swallowed hard. "How is this possible?"

Tsuna shook his head.

"I have no idea," he replied, suddenly hyper aware of himself, of his actions and voice and his appearance. He was self-conscious in a way he had never been around Hayato.

"Why now?" asked Hayato, ignoring the cigarette and moving to close his bedroom door, so that he could sit in front of the full-length mirror on its other side. "Why after all these years?"

"I have no idea," replied Tsuna, getting up and mirroring his friend's actions. Closing his bedroom door and grabbing a cushion to sit on, Tsuna drew his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. "Why can we even see each other in the first place?" asked Tsuna, wrapping his arms around his legs. "I mean, this isn't normal."

All these years they'd been friends, these thoughts had been swirling inside Tsuna's head, and they had been easy enough to ignore. It had been easy to keep them at bay when they had that barrier of silence between them. But now the silence was gone, and the questions were spilling out.

"It isn't," agreed Gokudera absently, reaching a hand out and touching the glass with his fingertips. "Some people believe that mirrors are gatways to other dimensions," he menioned.

Tsuna's eyebrows furrowed. "You think we're from different dimensions?" he asked, watching as Gokudera pressed his entire hand against the glass, as if trying to find a way to Tsuna's side, and felt tempted to copy him.

"No, we're from the same dimension," replied Gokudera with a certainty that Tsuna had to wonder at. How on Earth could he be so sure?

"But there must be...something strong connecting us. The mirrors, they're acting like bridges," he said, eying Tsuna's hand meaningfully.

Tsuna hesitated a moment, before reaching out, and laying his hand exactly where Hayato's was, on the other side.

The glass was smooth and cool to the touch.

But it felt...thin, for lack of a better word. Like all that was separating their hands was a thin piece of paper.

The glass seemed to warm under his touch, and for a brief second, Tsuna thought he felt Gokudera's gentle, calloused fingers under his, before he snatched his hand away as if he had been burned, and Gokudera did the same.

Their eyes met.

This was straying into scary territory.

Wordlessly, they both agreed to drop the topic, and move on to a more familiar topic.

They sat talking even longer than usual, the conversation going that much easier now that they could hear each other.

And before long, their earlier conversation had fallen to the backs of their minds.

* * *

Tsuna and and Hayato became even closer once they began hearing each other.

There was something intimate about having whispered conversations, even if the reason they were whispering was so that others didn't overhear and think they were crazy for talking to windows or screens or mirrors.

It was like having a brother.

Only better, because they had none of the sibling rivalry.

Not that they didn't have their occasional arguments.

Tsuna wouldn't let up trying to get Hayato to quit smoking, and Hayato didn't seem eager to stop.

They once spent one full month not talking to each other.

Whenever they saw each other, one would inevitably be annoyed at the other so that when one finally mind up their mind to apologize, the other would turn their face away, thus putting an end to that attempt.

In the end, this little feud finally ended when Tsuna came home one day to find a note written on his bathroom mirror in black sharpie.

"You win," it simply said.

Laying on the counter underneath the note, on Hayato's side of the mirror, was a pack of nicotine gum.

Tsuna felt a soft smile come to his face.

"Thank you," he whispered, even though Hayato wasn't around at the moment.

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi was walking home from school when it happened.

The driver had completely lost control of his vehicle, and just as Tsuna turned the corner, the big truck came careening in his direction, and he felt time go all wonky.

The moment seemed to pass in slow motion, everything from the driver's horrified expression to his knuckles white from how tightly he was clutching the steering wheel seemed to stand out in vivid detail.

But at the same time, it seemed over in a second, and the next thing Tsuna knew, he was lying with his cheek pressed to the hard ground, a puddle of something warm starting to collect on the pavement beneath his head.

And as he slowly lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was Gokudera Hayato in the screen of his phone, which had slipped out of his pocket as he fell to the ground.

Hayato was pounding on the glass with a frantic expression on his face. Tears were spilling from his eyes, which were widened in absolute horror and grief, and he seemed to be shouting something.

Tsuna couldn't hear what he was saying though.

He wouldn't hear a damn thing.

Could barely see anything any more either.

Maybe if he closed his eyes, it would getter better.

So he closed his eyes, and he lost consciousness.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was sixteen-years-old the last time he met the boy who lived in the mirrors.

* * *

SkyGem: That's it for now! Hope you all "enjoyed" this chapter...hehe. Please do leave a review and let me know wha you thought about it, yeah? The next chapter will be coming out tomorrow, and it will probably be the last. I'm not entirely sure yet...anyways, I'm off to sleep now. Don't forget to stay tuned! Ciao!


	4. Best of Friends

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks since the accident, and Hayato had not seen Sawada Tsunayoshi once in that time.

He had spent the first day after the accident lying in his bedroom in Dr. Shamal's home, staring first out the window, then at the computer screen, then at the mirror on the back of his door, just waiting for Tsuna to show up again.

He didn't.

The last image Hayato had of him was fluffy brown hair matted with blood, and soft brown eyes glazing over.

He remembered the pure panic that had taken over him as he watched his best friend, his brother, lying on the ground, motionless.

Soon Tsuna's his eyes had slid shut, the image had faded away, the way it did whenever they stayed up late, talking, and one of them fell asleep.

So Hayato didn't even know if the paramedics had made it there in time.

All he knew was that every mirror or window or screen he had looked into the past two weeks had been empty, and he would never know for sure what had happened to his best friend.

Suddenly, a knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts, but Hayato ignored it in favour of keeping his eyes locked on the window.

After a few moments, he heard the sound of the door opening, and footsteps coming closer.

He felt the bed shift a bit as Shamal sat on the side.

"You alright, brat?" he asked, but Hayato didn't reply.

Dr. Shamal was annoying.

But he was also the only person in the world, other than Tsuna, that Hayato didn't hate. He'd been a childhood friend of Hayato's mother, and when he had stumbled upon Hayato on the streets one night, all those years ago, he had taken the scruffy little streetrat home, and had refused to let him leave since.

When Hayato had told him, a week or two before Tsuna's accident, that he wanted to move to Japan, to his mother's hometown, Shamal hadn't replied.

Then, the next day, he had come up to Hayato and informed him that he had just, _coincidentally_, received a job offer at the high school in the town Hayato was thinking of moving to.

For those first two weeks, Hayato had been extremely excited for their move, and it had been hard enough to keep his move a surprise from Tsuna.

But now Tsuna would never know, and Hayato really didn't care about moving to Japan because he didn't want the constant remind that he would never learn what became of his best friend.

But they'd already been so far in their preparations for the move, and Shamal had uprooted his entire life for this, and Hayato wasn't _that_ ungrateful a bastard.

After a few more moments of silence, Hayato spoke up in a hoarse voice.

"Does it get easier?" he asked.

Shamal was quiet for a moment.

There was no need to clarify what Hayato had meant.

Shamal had gone through the same thing whe he'd lost his best childhood friend.

"It doesn't," he said after a moment. Then, in a quieter voice, "But you do get better at dealing with it."

The two sat in silence after that for a few more minutes, Shamal's presence comforting in a way Hayato would never admit to except under pain of death.

Then, the bed shifted again as Shamal got up.

"If there's anything you want to take that you haven't packed yet, you better put it away before you go to sleep, or we're leaving without it tomorrow," he said, before turning to leave Hayato to his grief.

As soon as the door had closed behind Shamal, Hayato turned over, his back to the window, and shut his eyes tight, hoping for peaceful oblivion.

And as he drifted off into some much needed sleep, he didn't notice sleepy brown eyes slide open the tiniest bit on his television screen, didn't notice their owner's lips stretch slightly into a relieved smile under the oxygen mask.

* * *

Three days after they had moved into the cosy, boring little town of Namimori, Hayato found himself standing in a classroom, twenty plus pairs of eyes staring at him in undisguised curiosity as he continued to glare at everyone whose gaze met his.

All of them immediately looked away.

Except for one, who just grinned a goofy grin back at him.

Hayato glared hard at him, but the other boy only grinned wider.

In the end, their teacher interrupted the glaring/grinning match by clearing his throat.

"Gokudera-san," he said, "You can take the empty seat at the back, beind Yamamoto."

The idiot Hayato had been glaring at only grinned wider at this, something Hayato would have thought impossible.

As he headed towards the his new seat, Hayato caught sight of another empty seat a few rows closer to the front, right beside the windows.

He frowned for a second, wondering why he couldn't just sit in that one.

Perhaps it belonged to someone who was absent?

Not like he cared.

He preferred to sit at the back.

Without a window nearby.

After that, Hayato spent the rest of the day glaring at anyone who tried to talk to him, and proving to the teacher that just because he looked and acted like a delinquent, it didn't mean he was stupid.

He was quite the opposite actually.

When the long, boring day was finally over, Hayato swiftly packed up his belongings, ready to get the hell out of the place, when he overheard something that made him freeze in his tracks, and his blood turn to ice in his veins.

"Do you _have_ _to _go visit him every single day?" one of Hayato's classmates was asking of the cheerful idiot who sat in front of him.

"Of course," replied the idiot in his ever cheerful voice. "Sawada-san is our classmate! I need to make sure he's still alright. And anyways, the doctors were saying yesterday that there are signs of him waking up from his coma! Isn't that amazing?"

The boy next to him began whining about how there was a baseball tournament coming up that Yamamoto should be practising for, and who cared if the clumsy class idiot was waking up or not.

He stopped mid-sentence, though, when he noticed Hayato come over, shrinking back a little as the taller boy towered over the entire group of friends.

The only one among them that didn't seem terrified was Yamamoto, who smiled brightly up at Gokudera, asking, "Is there something wrong, Gokudera-san?"

Hayato ignored his annoyingly cheerful tone in favour of something much more important.

"You were talking about someone named Sawada?" he asked, his heart racing as he felt a tentative hope coming to life inside him.

Yamamoto nodded, his expression becoming somewhat more somber.

"He's a classmate of ours," he said. "He was in an accident a few weeks ago, and I'm going to the hospital to visit him."

Hayato's eyes widened, the hope flaring up.

"This Sawada you're talking about...is it...Sawada Tsunayoshi?"

And suddenly, the entire group fell deathly silent as everyone stared up at him in confusion.

"Do you know Sawada-san?" asked Yamamoto, surprise obvious on his face, but Hayato didn't reply.

All the strength left his limbs as he almost sagged to the floor under the weight of the pure, unadulterated relief that threatened to drown him in that moment.

He was alive.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was alive.

"Y-yes," he answered Yamamoto's question, trying not to sound too choked up. "He's...he's my best friend."

There were gasps of astonishment from the people in the group, and Yamamoto's eyes lit up.

"That's great!" he said. "Why don't you come visit him with me? Maybe if he hears your voice, he'll wake up sooner!"

* * *

A groan escaped his lips.

It hurt.

His entire body was aching.

His ribs, his arms, his legs.

He wanted to keep sleeping

But he couldn't.

Something had woken him up.

A voice.

An important voice.

One he would recognize anywhere.

Fighting against the grogginess, he cracked his eyes open, and saw a worried face just inches from his own.

A face that surprised him.

Because he didn't know why, but it didn't belong here. It really didn't belong here.

But it was here.

And it's appearance made something jump for joy inside him.

When their eyes met, a smile stretched across the other boy's face.

And Tsuna couldn't help but respond in like.

Tsuna was sixteen-years-old the first time he met the boy who had formerly lived inside the mirrors.

And they became the best of friends.

* * *

_**The End**_

* * *

SkyGem: Wow, it's finished! And it wasn't a sad ending! Yay! Hope you all enjoyed this, and thank you so so so much for sticking around til the end. I hope I didn't disappoint! Please do leave one last review to let me know what you all thought, yeah? Anyways, bye bye, and I'll see you all tomorrow night!


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